How to Climb a Mountain

I got to climb a mountain last week, using a method I hadn't tried before: taking a helicopter partway up and hiking the rest.  Highly recommended.  There are two ways to accomplish this: 1) have lots of money to hire a helicopter; or 2) cultivate a 20-year friendship with someone who will eventually turn out to be a helicopter pilot who then will manage a helicopter base, and go visit him when he has some rare downtime in the summer.  I stumbled onto #2.

The mountain we flew up to and climbed is called Raft Mountain, just outside of Clearwater, BC and Wells Gray Provincial Park.  There are trails you can take all the way, and according to Wikipedia it should take 2.5 hours to get to the top.  It took us about 10 minutes to fly to where we landed, around 7,000 feet elevation, and another 30 minutes to hike to the summit (just over 8,000 feet).  Again, highly recommended.

The day's mode of transportation.

We're headed to the pointy part in the middle of the picture.

Getting closer....

Closer...

Landed in a meadow, and we get to hike
along the ridge to the top. There were some pretty
cool drop-offs down some sheer rock faces!

A tiny patch of snow.

Clearly others have been here before.

Almost at the top.

Summit.
Stupid Lifeproof case messes with my front-facing camera.
I need a new phone case - suggestions?

Headed back down, you can see the helicopter -
it's the speck in the middle of the picture.